Since the birth that year of the Groveton woman's daughter, the number of babies born annually at the facility now known as Inova Fairfax Hospital has climbed steadily, topping 10,000 for the first time last year. Last month, the hospital reached another milestone, bringing its 250,000th baby into the world in its maternity ward, one of the busiest in the nation.

"We've given birth to a small city here since we opened," said Janice Moore, a hospital spokeswoman whose first child, a son, was among the 10,032 babies born at Inova Fairfax last year. The 250,000- plus births at the hospital in Falls Church include more than 3,000 pairs of twins, 73 sets of triplets and five batches of quadruplets.

But perhaps the biggest change is demographics. Among the women giving birth at Inova Fairfax these days are large numbers of Hispanic and Asian immigrants, reflecting the transformation of the surrounding region. Hispanic women, most of them from El Salvador, now account for about one-third of the hospital's overall maternity ward patients and make up about 60 percent of those considered indigent, who get free care at the hospital's OB-GYN clinic, hospital officials said.

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